


Birthday

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics), batfam - Fandom
Genre: Gen, The Daughter - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 20:16:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19158211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: "I have a baby. Did you know that? She's not mine anymore, but--""Don't worry, Stephanie. She'll never want for anything. I promise."-Stephanie Brown and Bruce Wayne, Batman #633





	Birthday

Stephanie remembered all of it: the birthing classes and the ultrasounds and the night in the hospital— especially the night in the hospital, especially today. Today was important.

  
It was her birthday today. Not Stephanie’s. Someone _more_ important.

  
Stephanie reached the Batcave as the sun went down. Bruce sat in his computer chair reading from the massive screen in front of him, but he turned around when she came through the door. He set a stack of files aside.

  
“Stephanie,” he said.

  
“Hey.” She walked over to meet him. “I was… wondering.”

  
“Yes?”

  
“My… my daughter. You promised me that you would take care of her.”

  
“I did.”

  
“Do you know— I mean, do you have—” Stephanie stopped to collect herself, then forced out the words as calmly as she could.

  
“How is she?”

  
Bruce stared at her for a few moments. He pulled back his cowl and regarded her with sympathetic eyes.

  
“Are you sure you want to have this conversation?” he asked gently.

  
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

  
“You want to see her.”

  
“I… yes.”

  
“Okay.” Bruce turned back to his computer, clicked on a file, and typed in a twenty-digit number. The screen lit up with a row of photographs. Bruce moved aside to give Stephanie the mouse.

  
“These are from this year,” he told her.

  
She selected the first photograph with shaking hands. It expanded to fill the screen, and Stephanie saw a swimming pool in bright sunlight. A little girl with yellow floaties and a pink sunhat stood on a set of steps in the shallows, splashing droplets upward around her. She had long legs and tiny freckles across her nose.

  
Stephanie scrolled forward: the same girl with blonde pigtails and cowboy boots on a front porch somewhere, the girl and a Labrador puppy tangled together on a grassy background, both asleep. The girl with windswept hair and a kite string, laughing as the kite flew above her.

  
“Are you okay?” Bruce asked.

  
Stephanie nodded and went forward again: the next photo showed the girl kneeling on a sidewalk scrawled with pictures and letters in brightly colored chalk; her hands and cheeks were smeared in those same colors— blue and purple and green. Two pictures left.

  
The first was the girl in a martial arts uniform with a tiny white belt. She held an orange water bottle bigger than her own head and grinned at the camera. The second was the girl in a black and purple pajama onesie, complete with a cape and a yellow bat logo on the chest.

  
“Christmas morning,” said Bruce, “with her favorite present.”

  
“Oh,” Stephanie stepped away from the screen. “Oh, I—” She felt herself start to cry. “I think I—”

  
“I shouldn’t have showed you.”

  
“No!” Stephanie exclaimed. “No, this is— this is good! I needed to see.”

  
“Her parents send the pictures for you,” Bruce said quietly. “They don’t know who you are, but they send them for you. Her birth mother.”

  
Stephanie swiped the tears away from her eyes— not happy tears exactly, but not sad either. Something deep in Stephanie’s chest released itself, and she leaned against Bruce’s chair for support as she sobbed in relief.

  
They were okay, Stephanie and the little girl both. Everything was going to be okay.

  
“I want the pictures,” she told Bruce. “Whenever they come.”

  
“Of course.”

  
“And I want… I want to thank you.”

  
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

  
“There is.” Stephanie bent downwards and kissed him on the cheek. “So thank you. And thank them for me too. For the pictures and… and everything else.”

  
“I will.”

  
“I need to go now.” Stephanie smiled and wiped away the tears still falling down her face. “I need to— I need to go.”

  
“Whatever you need…” Bruce offered.

  
“I know.”

  
Stephanie turned and walked out into the dusk, lighter than she had felt in a long time.

 


End file.
